“But why this country?” he persisted. “What’s this place got that others don’t?”
She shrugged. “Jungles?”
He didn’t say another word for a few minutes, but then he made it worse. “Whose idea was it not to allow us guys on The TEAM to use GPS or sat phones while we’re here?”
“Mine,” she answered promptly. “Neither team had the choice. GPS and sat phones can be tracked. It might’ve thrown the results of the beta test. Someone might have used them to contact someone for help. We wanted this to be purely human against the ACS.”
“You suspected us of cheating?”
“No.” She shook her head to emphasize her words. “But we needed established absolutes to insure the credibility of the test. No GPS for either team was a given from the start.”
“Who came up with the idea of war games in the first place?”
“Why does it matter?” She didn’t like his tone of insinuation.
“Who stands to gain if MI’s ACS1 doesn’t come online as scheduled? Who’s Jed McCormack’s biggest threat? His competition?”
“That would be any defense business with a competing interest,” she said, still careful to stick as close to prickly Hunter Christian as possible. His questions raised her ire, but she had to give him leeway as she dragged the supply crate. He was only asking the same questions she’d be asking if she were in his place. She turned the tables on him. “Who do you think is trying to kill us?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
“Wait. You don’t think someone on my team had anything to do with these murders, do you?”
“Who else knew we were coming here? Seems to me your office has a leak. Someone’s been talking to the wrong people.”
“What about your office?” She sent a volley right back at his arrogant head. “My team was solid. Besides, they’re all dead. Or did you forget?”
That ought to have shut him up, but it didn’t. “Well, someone sure talked, and it wasn’t us.”
“What about your guys? I haven’t seen their bodies yet?” She cringed the moment those words came out of her mouth. She didn’t want to see any more bodies, especially not Eric’s or Ky’s or Seth’s. It was bad enough her friends were dead. “I’m sorry, Hunter. I didn’t mean that. I trust you guys. Honest.”
“But think about it,” he insisted, ignoring her hasty insult. “Who else had inside information on this op? Who knew exactly where your team was camped for the night? Who else could’ve done this if not someone inside McCormack Industries? Someone who knew where and when to strike?”
She raked her fingers into the tousled hair that had fallen into her face and shoved it over her shoulder. Darn him. He’d made her mad again. “Are you accusing Jed?”
“Are you accusing Alex?” He took it up a notch, and she wanted to knock him off his high horse at those very stupid accusations. Jed and Alex were impeccably honest. Their agents too.
“Just where do you think Seth, Ky and Eric are?”
“Dead,” he stated. “Damn it, woman. Will it make you happy to finally see their bodies, too?”
She stopped walking. Given the choice she’d head in the opposite direction, but she had to keep up with this rude, unpredictable guy or die in the jungle.
Suddenly, Hunter rested the litter to the ground and took a menacing step back to her. The minute his arm reached out, she dropped the handle to the supply crate. She flinched, her palms up, anticipating a slap for having made him mad. It never came.
He’d reached completely behind her. And then it got worse. A shiver thundered through her body when the twenty-foot long twisting body of a hissing snake came into view. Without thinking, she leapt behind Hunter while he wrestled the pulsing, slithering thing, his big hands fisted and clenched tight beneath the striped, arrow-shaped head, the snake’s tongue darting out to taste the back of his hands, its fangs bared and dripping and—
It looked at her with its milky blue yes, the eyes of a devil.
A full-body shiver raced up Meredith’s spine, making her wiggle. Frightened, but needing to offer encouragement, she rested her palm to the center of Hunter’s sweaty back, careful to keep an eye on that evil creature and her body well out of its range.
Monstrously thick coils circled Hunter’s wrist, winding up, concealing the tattooed snake on his forearm, the tip of a real serpentine tail whipping the air, searching for purchase on its victim. He grunted under the constrictor’s assault, beads of sweat dotting his forehead, trickling into his eyes, glistening into rivulets down his neck. And still he fought.
Meredith stifled her scream, wanting to help, but this snake was so big, its body as thick as the tree branch it had slithered down from. Creamy gray with reddish-brown diamond saddles over its spine, the creature’s skin devolved into darker reddish-brown scales near its tail, that grasping tentacle that had just wrapped itself around Hunter’s chest. Squeezing even as it shifted lower to his waist. Clenching. Spiraling, every scale a living, undulating muscle of death by suffocation.
“Shit,” Hunter wheezed, his face contorted with the struggle of man against this behemoth.
Another violent shiver wriggled up Meredith’s spine. She stamped her feet at the injustice of their situation. The whole damned jungle was trying to kill them!
With another growl and a grunt, Hunter let out a mighty roar as he snapped the neck of the beast. Unwinding its writhing body from his torso, he slammed it to the dirt. The dying snake’s body kept squirming, twisting, and thrashing while Meredith rubbed her biceps to calm the gooseflesh climbing up her body. This snake was so—big!
Hunter dusted his hands to his thighs, inhaling deep breaths, his chest heaving. “Snake,” he wheezed, his tone casual while her insides quivered.
“I know,” she whined, but then she gulped. He hadn’t meant to hit her. He’d saved her life. Whew. Again. What a relief. Okay, so any moment now, her heart should stop beating like the whole damned percussion section of her college band. Any minute now, she would recover. Any minute now...
The dying snake squirmed, but judging by the sharp right angle of its head to its body, it wasn’t going anywhere except into another predator’s stomach. She rubbed a nervous palm over her mouth, unable to take her eyes off the serpent, her heart still pounding. It was big enough; it could’ve eaten her. All that writhing and squeezing could’ve been around her neck or her chest. It could’ve squeezed her to death. Swallowed her whole.
“Did you seriously think I was going to hit you?” Hunter asked, when he could finally breath, his gaze scrolling from her fingers digging into his forearm to her face. “Back there? Did you?”
“Umm, no. I just, umm...” She pulled her hand away from the warmth and strength of his arm. How embarrassing. She hadn’t remembered grabbing hold of him.
Meredith gulped down the acid in her throat, not sure how much of her failed relationship with Eddy she wanted to reveal, but yes. For a split second there she’d most certainly thought Hunter would hit her. He’d gone all Rambo on her last night in the dark. Then they’d kissed. But still. He was bigger and meaner than she was. Angrier.
“I don’t hit women, Meredith,” he said earnestly, sincerely. He cocked his head, leaning down to peer closer into her eyes. “I don’t hurt children, animals, or old folks either.”
There was no way to lie. She swallowed hard. Her lashes lowered, hopefully before he’d caught one glimpse of the truth she’d buried or the man she’d run from.
“Is there something you want to tell me?” he asked, his tone pitched with genuine concern. And there he was again, the gentle man she used to love. This Hunter she knew, and she wanted him to stay.
She lifted her chin. The utter darkness of his eyes had lightened to a dark coffee brown with caramel sprinkles. Just as she’d remembered. She took a deep, cleansing breath, not afraid of Hunter Christian. Not him. He’d never hurt her.
“But I do kill snakes, the two-legged kind and the kind that slithers on its belly,�
�� he growled.
She faced him stoically, wanting to share but not quite sure if she should. Did he mean Eddy by that two-legged comment? Did Hunter have any idea what she’d lived through?
He must’ve read her unwillingness to share. With a soft snort, he resumed the role of beast of burden, lifting the litter, and away he went.
She scrambled to keep up, dragging the wheeled container behind her. Hunter just kept going, with a hole in his chest no less. What was this man made of? Titanium?
The silence between them stretched until it hurt her heart. Meredith needed to talk about the thing that had very nearly happened with the snake, and also with Hunter reading her mind like he had. Did it never go away, that startle reflex a woman developed once she’d been slapped and punched in the face by a man? By her husband, the man who was supposed to protect and respect her?
She needed to vent. Oh heck, she needed Hunter to wrap his big strong arms around her and tell her he’d keep her safe. That would be a nice change. Eddy never had. He liked to strong-arm her, though. His idea of fun always turned to torture, then sex, brute-force, humiliation, and pain. When she’d cried for him to lay off, well, things had gotten worse. Too late, she’d discovered Eddy didn’t like being told what to do. Or asked.
She had a definite attraction to Hunter, but was he any better than her ex? She’d seen him kill a man without remorse, and now a giant snake, an adult-sized boa constrictor. The gentleness in him seemed disposable, a tool he pulled out of his gear bag when he needed it, and just as easily stowed it once it served his needs. Eddy could be like that—sly one moment, cruel the next.
After hours of walking, her feet were miserably sore again, and she needed another rest, but she wouldn’t give Hunter the satisfaction of telling him so. No. Let him think of it all by himself. That was obviously what he was best at—dreaming up a world of corporate lies and deceit. Yet the fact remained. Someone had to have shared the whereabouts of this top-secret ACS1 prototype test. Why else would a stranger named Burdette be looking for her?
Hunter stopped in his tracks so suddenly that she almost ran over the litter with the crate. He made it worse when he sidestepped and she ran smack into his back. Wow. The man was made of steel. He didn’t budge, but she nearly fell backwards from the impact. To catch herself, she latched onto his belt and peered around him.
“What now?” she asked quietly, afraid she might disturb another assassin or something just as deadly. Like a snake.
Hunter held a fisted hand up, one finger extended forward.
She looked closer, not seeing what he wanted her to see. “What?” she asked again, still looking for a twining, twisting serpent amongst the variegated-green dangling vines.
“Fence,” he growled.
Fence? Oh, now she saw it. The crazy thing looked like the one out of Jurassic Park. The network of coils and conductors had to be twenty-feet high. How could she have missed it? Oh, wait. She’d been looking for shiny, slithering snakes—that was how.
“What’s a fence doing in the middle of the jungle?”
Of course, the big, strong, silent type beside her didn’t answer. Instead, Hunter crouched to one knee and selected a short piece of a wooden branch from the ground. Tossing it into the wires, the wooden missile evaporated in a spray of sparks, smoke, and crackle. Wow. The fence wasn’t only electrified—it was darned electrified.
“What are they trying to keep in? The panther?” Meredith asked.
Hunter straightened, his eyes searching the jungle behind her. “Us.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Just damned great. A bungled op. A half-naked woman. Murderous guards on our trail and now a fence? Could this mission get any crazier? What the hell’s going on?
“How do we know who built it?” Meredith asked, her hand shielding her eyes from the morning sun.
“I don’t care who built it. Move out,” Hunter ordered. With no way forward, he did the only thing he could. He turned the litter around and retraced his footsteps, needing to get Meredith and Teague to safety before Fat Bastard’s buddies caught up with them.
But damn, all the worst case scenarios pinged in his head. Why an electrified fence? Why here? Precisely how large was the confinement area? Was he caught inside or outside of it, or was something else going on that neither the MI nor TEAM guys knew about? Worse, were they being herded in a specific direction?
That was what he’d be doing if he’d meant to trap his enemies. Brushing them into a narrowing chute to their doom was a damned good idea. Hunter wished he’d thought of it, but if that Burdette guy thought he had Hunter trapped, the guy didn’t have a clue what a pissed-off Marine was capable of.
But Hunter also knew Alex and Jed had both vetted this specific jungle area of Brazil before they’d agreed to perform the beta test here. They would’ve spotted the fence then. Whoever’d built it had money, but Hunter had his doubts that guy was Burdette.
Blam! Pop! Pop! Pop! Gunfire erupted in the jungle ahead and Hunter launched himself sideways to shield Meredith. The container tipped to its side when she dropped to the ground with him sprawled on top of her. Teague groaned, the first sound he’d made in a while. A flock of noisy birds lifted out of the jungle trees, and instantly, Hunter’s gaze raked the dense cover of trees and vines for sniper hides in the trees.
Shit. He’d been distracted, and now they were in danger. They could very well be caught in one of those narrow chutes intended to push them into a kill zone or a trap.
Hunter sucked in a breath and turned into the USMC radar dish he should’ve been all along. Tree trunks lifted above the brush and smaller trees, but no sniper hide revealed itself. The steady chatter of monkeys confirmed the feeling in his gut. None of the three men he’d come across were black ops material. They weren’t smart enough to have preplanned something as simple as a raised platform to shoot from.
His nostrils flared as an oddly sweet, but rank, odor drifted along the moist jungle floor, bringing with it the oppressive aroma of decay. Animal decay. Something damned large had died nearby. It was time to move.
He would have, except he finally noticed where he’d landed. On Meredith. He found himself crouched over her, one leg extended the length of her body, his elbows dug into the dirt alongside her arms while, unfortunately, his other knee had landed between her legs, right up against her delectable, feminine hot spot. That son-of-a-bitch karma had done it to him again.
Her hand brushed against his chest even as he looked down into two pools of worried blue. “Don’t be afraid,” his big mouth said. “I’m here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She blinked and nodded, her palms firm almost as if she thought she was keeping him from falling. “I really do know that about you, Hunter.”
Another two shots snapped his head up. Whoever was out there didn’t seem to be after him or Meredith. Not yet. The racket was headed in the opposite direction. Maybe this wasn’t the trap he’d thought it was. He dropped his chin and faced the lovely lady beneath him again. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Okay,” she breathed, her tongue tracing her bottom lip.
He had to move before his body sprang to stiffer attention. Angling his rifle into his left arm, he pushed off the ground and offered her a hand up. She came easily, but he didn’t offer her the comfort he wanted to. This was no time for hugs. They had some rugged ground to cover.
They weren’t far from river country, home to some of the steepest terrain and highest waterfalls on the continent. Deeply forested and full of peril, it was their only chance to elude the men after them. Hunter began to doubt his first take on that gate. No one could’ve built a fence big enough to contain the mighty Amazon with all its tributaries, could they?
Jumping to conclusions could get a guy killed, so he went with his gut. The river was still their best option. After righting the supply crate and making sure Teague was good to go, Hunter shouldered his load and once again turned back the way they’d come. If lucky, he co
uld leave Meredith and Teague somewhere safe along the riverbank while he returned for his guys. If unlucky? Well, damn. Things would get tougher. He shrugged the pinch out of his stiff neck and marched on.
“What’s the plan?” Meredith asked timidly at his rear.
“Find out who’s behind this,” he answered patiently. He’d seen the fear in her eyes before. This nightmare had to end.
“How are you going to do that?”
He rolled his eyes, which she couldn’t see because she was still behind him where she belonged. Marines charged into battle, that was how. If she was as smart as she thought she was, she’d know that about him by now.
Intent on getting her someplace safe, he darned near ran over the corpse. Make that corpses. Holy shit. Hunter stopped just short of the depression in the ground at the tip of his boot. Flies buzzed in one huge black, crawling sheet over the bodies. So this is where those smells came from.
Oomph. Meredith bumped into his back. “I’m sorry.”
He held up his fist for silence, but the dammed woman kept apologizing. “I got off the track and I wasn’t watching—”
“Shhhhh,” he hissed, pausing over the carnage. Two of Meredith’s team members lay sprawled in between two other bodies, all in rapid decomp. Animals had been at them. Fingers and toes were chewed away. Eyeballs were missing. He recognized Lyle’s bald head. The mop of curly dark hair on one corpse might be Eric’s. There wasn’t enough left of the face to be certain.
Oh, God. Eric. Hunter’s throat went dry. If he ever needed a smoke, it was then.
What would anyone hope to gain by this atrocity? Besides the defense contract, if that truly was the motive, why go to the extreme measure of killing everyone involved in the beta test? What purpose did that serve?
Meredith’s ragged gasp brought him to his sense. She stood at his right elbow with her hand to her mouth and her eyes wide open, staring at the bodies. “It’s… it’s Lyle,” she moaned, pointing at the horrific scene.
Hunter (In the Company of Snipers Book 14) Page 11